DOCSLIB.ORG

An Introduction to the Hermeneutics of Luigi Pareyson

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
An Introduction to the Hermeneutics of Luigi Pareyson Differentia: Review of Italian Thought Number 3 Combined Issue 3-4 Spring/Autumn Article 22 1989 An Introduction to the Hermeneutics of Luigi Pareyson Peter Carravetta Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/differentia Recommended Citation Carravetta, Peter (1989) "An Introduction to the Hermeneutics of Luigi Pareyson," Differentia: Review of Italian Thought: Vol. 3 , Article 22. Available at: https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/differentia/vol3/iss1/22 This document is brought to you for free and open access by Academic Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Differentia: Review of Italian Thought by an authorized editor of Academic Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. An Introduction to the Hermeneutics of Luigi Pareyson Peter Carravetta La vera interpretazionee quella che si consegueai limiti de/la comprensibilita.-L. Pareyson 1. PREMISES This introductory critical assessment of Luigi Pareyson' s thought, being part of a larger project, 1 is to be understood bearing the following three perspectives in mind. First, within the horizon of the theory-method relation. Second, in terms of a referential hermeneutic yardstick which will serve as an external, "empirical control," or better yet, a screen upon which to trace the movements of about ten conditions to be met. And third, in view of a still-in­ progress idea of interpretation as diaphoristics. Concerning the first parameter, we are provisionally going to assume that interpretation is constituted and activated by a grounding dialectic between the requirements of epistemology, which underlie and legitimate methodic process, and those of ontology, which are inherent in theory. Otherwise stated, one cannot use or apply a critical method without at the same time positing a referential ontology, whether explicitly or tacitly; vice DIFFERENT/A 3-4 (Spring/Autumn 1989) 0/FFERENTIA 218 versa, one cannot theorize about any object or phenomenon, be it Picasso's Guernica, the university system or Kafka's texts, with­ out resorting to certain systematic, organizational "moves," in other words, without doing it methodically. This will explain, I hope, my emphasis on specific key terms and tenets of Pareyson's thought, instead of others which, though important enough to warrant other perspectives, need not occupy us here. 2 The second parameter for our reading is constituted by certain more or less established principles of hermeneutics as derived primarily from the tradition that leads into, and is systematized by, the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer. A makeshift compendium of Gadamer's thought-which is at the same time sensitive to the conceptual innovations brought about by Schleiermacher, Hegel, Dilthey, Husserl and Heidegger 3-would give us the following decalogue: Interpretation is, intrinsically, historical,linguistic, dialectic,ontolog­ ical, the event of being, objective,begins with the text, exists within the present of the interpreter, is a disclosingof truth, and, finally, interpre­ tation is the locus where the aesthetichas beenabsorbed by or transformed into the genuinely hermeneutic.4 The specific range and depth of each of these terms will become evident through this reading and in the conclusions. The critical metaphor of the Diaphoraderives from another context, one in which poetry and philosophy are not conceived as being in opposition to each other, or in radical, mutually exclu­ sive antithesis, but, rather, as necessarily co-originary and thus constantly con-versing. The interpretation of the text comes into existence when it enters this field, initiating a dialogue with several voices, a mise-en-scene which might be, but does not have to be a mise-en-abyme, a speaking, we might say, with several possible differentiated characters. 5 2. AESTHETICS First published in 1954 after studies on existentialism, Jaspers and German idealism, 6 Luigi Pareyson's Estetica: teoria della for­ mativita is the third and last (after Croce's and Gentile's) of the great books on aesthetics written in this century in Italy, coming out at a time when this genre seemed to have outlived its reason to be.7 The importance of this work rests on its being the first, at least in the Italian panorama, to deal with the beingof the interpreter and the being of art, setting them in relation by means of interpre- PETER CARRAVETTA 219 tation itself, and describing the process in ontological terms. The key term in Pareyson is Forma in its dynamic, interacting sense. As such Forma is, at any one time, either forma formante-form as an enabling process which gives a specific shape to whatever it is dealing with-or forma formata-form as what something exhibits when at rest, what makes it recognizable as such. Pareyson anchors his vision in the heart of human existence, believing that humankind in its broadest sense is essentially a producer of forms (Estetica19-23 et passim). Thus Forma exists" as an organism living of its own life and inner legitimation, closed and open both within the definiteness that encloses the infinite" [comeorganismo vivente di propria vita e legalita interna, conclusaed aperta insieme nella sua definitezza che racchiudel'infinito]. From these premises, art is described by means of a phenomenology of its realization or "coming into being" [nel suo farsi]. Here we discover that art is both production and invention, which means that in effect art is a making which invents its own manner or way of doing, realizing itself as a series of attempts toward a successful or fulfilled completion [tentativi verso la rius­ cita]. One cannot produce art without inventing the means to "make" it, but, by the same token, one does not invent anything unless it is also produced, made real. The underlying principle is called forming-activity [formativita, literally 'formativity'], 8 which assumes a content, a material means and an inner working law peculiar and specific to it (E 22-27). Among the preliminary find­ ings of this position is that, above all, art is conscious of and respects the alterity of the work, "protecting" it so to speak from blind insight or misguided appropriation. Later, the same concern with alterity will mark interpretation in general. 3. ART If, as Pareyson holds, art is a forming-activity both specific and intentional, then the question arises: How do we distinguish it from the rest of experience, if our entire existence is dependent upon this forming capacity? First point: Art has no pre-establishedend-that is, it is not a forming-activity-of anything in particular, but form which aims at becoming Form, and that's all. Notice how this sounds very much like what was postulated by such diverse and indeed strange bedfellows as Benedetto Croce and Gertrude Stein. But this ought not to be seen as a contradiction or inconsistency as much as the fullest exploitation of what both the Idealistic tradition and the DIFFERENT/A 220 Idealism of all theorizing done by artists in general have yielded as unshakable premises of cultural humankind: every person is an idealist at one time or another; moreover, let's not forget that idealist/idealism contains the root notion of idea, eidos, vision. However, we will also see radical divergencies among these posi­ tions once we explore other aspects. For instance, Pareyson says that thinking and ethics, though subordinated to the "formation principle," interact with it, so that the forming-activity [formativita] is directed at a given action or phenomenon by taking into consid­ eration thought-i.e., that which thought has formulated-while at the same time respecting its alterity. This argument rests on the fundamental ontology of the persona, or person, which in Pareyson embodies the opening or disclosedness as the coinci­ dence of self-relation and hetero-relation. Person, in short, can be thought of as the recognition of alterity, and is therefore emi­ nently social, interpersonal. It can be seen that the argument is pointing toward a dialogics of sorts. But to defer this discussion, it should also be clear that art may-it doesn't have to-incorporate the contribution of thought (of ethics, ideology, politics), without sacrificing its primary ideal, which is to become Form. 9 This will be crucial to criticism, as we will see further down. On the other hand, even in terms of action guided by what sounds like a very pragmatic telos-whether it regards shaping an idea, or a simple constructive gesture, or even just going through the rituals of everydayness handed down through his­ tory-people always try to do things "aesthetically." In the original Italian, Pareyson relies on the idiomatic expression fare le case ad arte, literally "to make things as if they were a work of art," better yet, "to do it right," or according to the inner necessity to do things well, perfectly and beautifully. In art there's a shaping­ activity which seeks the Forming process itself : though each and every human action is forming-activity [formativita],the work qua work of art is Formation [formazione],"in the sense that the work intentionally aims at Formation, and thought and action intervene only in order to insure that it reaches it" (E 23). The work of art is also intrinsically matter/substance, in Italian materia, a concrete entity that denies the genitive to art insofar as it must evidence itself as pure form. As such, the material aspect of the work sets up a polarity with respect to the shaping principle of the artistic process, which is identified as puro tentare, pure groping and attempting. 10 This calls to mind another vector, the pull of interpretive dynamics, the seeking of a path guided by a Form which is not yet there (and is, therefore, unknown, ungrasp­ able, invisible so to speak) and must, therefore, be guessed or divined: PETER CARRAVETTA 221 The divination of form is thus only a law guiding the execution in progress, a law that cannot be explicated in terms of precepts, but rather, as an inner norm of the action aiming at its successful completion [alla riuscita]; thus it is not a single law valid for all artistic cases, but a rule which is immanent to the one specific process in question.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • On Formativity: Art As Praxis
    META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy – X (2) / 2018 META: RESEARCH IN HERMENEUTICS, PHENOMENOLOGY, AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY VOL. X, NO. 2 / DECEMBER 2018: 410-421, ISSN 2067-3655, www.metajournal.org On Formativity: Art as Praxis Gaetano Chiurazzi Università di Torino Abstract Luigi Pareyson‘s concept of formativity is one of his most relevant and original concepts. In this paper I will give a short exposition of this concept in Pareyson‘s Estetica and try to show how it can account, better as other object, subject-, target- oriented theories, even of some features of contemporary art. The very relevant innovation that we can find in this concept is the shift from a concept of art as poiesis—as it is in Aristotle, namely, as a production of an object—to the concept of art as praxis, that is, as an activity which involves the entire doing of the artist. As a doing that invents the form of doing, formativity appears as a kind of schematism that operates, not only without concept, as it is in Kant‘s Critique of Judgement, but even without object. The thesis here suggested is that formativity can be understood as a transcendentalism of invention. Keywords: Pareyson, aesthetics; formativity, work of art, invention, poiesis, praxis I The goal of this article is to discuss the concept of ‗formativity‘ formulated by the Italian philosopher Luigi Pareyson, the teacher of more well-known philosophers as Gianni Vattimo and Umberto Eco at the University of Turin.1 This concept is presented by Pareyson in his book Estetica, published in its first edition in 1954, with the subtitle Teoria della formatività (Theory of formativity).
    [Show full text]
  • FORMATIVIDADE E INTERPRETAÇÃO a Filosofia Estética De Luigi Pareyson
    1 UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO NORTE CENTRO DE CIÊNCIAS HUMANAS, LETRAS E ARTES PROGRAMA DE DOUTORADO INTEGRADO EM FILOSOFIA UFPB-UFPE-UFRN ÍRIS FÁTIMA DA SILVA FORMATIVIDADE E INTERPRETAÇÃO A Filosofia Estética de Luigi Pareyson NATAL/RN 2013 2 ÍRIS FÁTIMA DA SILVA FORMATIVIDADE E INTERPRETAÇÃO A Filosofia Estética de Luigi Pareyson Tese apresentada ao Programa Integrado de Doutorado em Filosofia UFPB-UFPE-UFRN, como requisito parcial para obtenção do título de Doutor em Filosofia. Orientador: Prof. Dr. Oscar Federico Bauchwitz Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte Programa de Doutorado Sanduiche no Exterior PDSE - CAPES - Università degli Studi di Torino Coorientador: Prof. Dr. Gianluca Cuozzo NATAL/RN 2013 3 FICHA CATALOGRÁFICA Catalogação da Publicação na Fonte. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte. Biblioteca Setorial do Centro de Ciências Humanas, Letras e Artes (CCHLA). SILVA, Íris Fátima da. Formatividade e interpretação: a filosofia estética de Luigi Pareyson / Íris Fátima da Silva. – 2013. 311f. - Tese (doutorado) – Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte. Centro de Ciências Humanas, Letras e Artes. Programa Integrado de Doutorado em Filosofia, UFPB-UFPE-UFRN, 2013. Orientador: Prof. Dr. Oscar Federico Bauchwitz. Coorientador: Prof. Dr. Gianluca Cuozzo. PDSE – CAPES. Universitá Degli Studi di Torino. 1. Estética. 2. Metafísica. 3. Pareyson, Luigi, 1918-1991. I. Bauchwitz, Oscar Federico. II. Cuozzo, Gianluca. III. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte. IV. Università Degli Studi di Torino. V. Título. RN/BSE-CCHLA CDU 111 4 BANCA EXAMINADORA 05/novembro de 2013 Prof. Dr. Oscar Federico Bauchwitz Orientador - Presidente - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte Prof. Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • JOSEPH DE MAISTRE and ITALY Marco Ravera It Is Very Likely That Joseph De Maistre Would Not Have Been Very Much Interested in Th
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Institutional Research Information System University of Turin JOSEPH DE MAISTRE AND ITALY Marco Ravera It is very likely that Joseph de Maistre would not have been very much interested in the subject of the reception of his own thought in Italy.1 He did not consider himself Italian—and, in spite of his being Francophone, he did not consider himself French either—but only and exclusively Savoyard (or rather, in the last phase of his life, Savoyard and European at the same time, but certainly not Italian). His eyes and his attention were always drawn to France; and the early impulses for the national unity of Italy that happened a few years aft er the Restoration—a legacy of that Napoleonic epos which he abhorred so much—left him perplexed and astonished, rather than disturbed and troubled. It is true that, given that he died at the end of February 1821, he could not witness (or, we might say, he was spared the sight of) the early risings for unity. However, his opinion in this respect is con- densed, through refl ections enriched by that sarcastic irony which dis- tinguishes several of his writings, in some famous claims included in the letter to the marquis d’Azeglio2 of 21 February 1821—that is, three days before his death—where, with ill-concealed scepticism, he won- ders whether and to what extent one can call himself ‘Italian’. Aft er hav- ing thanked his correspondent for having sent to him a basketful of fruit, the nearly expiring lion still shows his claws and, taking his cue from some considerations on Piedmont and Italy made by d’Azeglio in the letter that accompanied the gift , added long refl ections on this sub- ject.
    [Show full text]
  • WHAT INSPIRES the ACADEMY: Jean M
    Q Academy of Management Review 2017, Vol. 42, No. 4, 745–755. WHAT INSPIRES THE ACADEMY: Jean M. Bartunek BOOK REVIEWS AND BEYOND Review Essays Editor Luigi Pareyson’s Estetica: Teoria della The contemporary reader should note that formativita` and Its Implications for Pareyson’sbookappearedinItalianin1954and Organization Studies that it was almost fifty years later that Peter Carravetta wrote as follows in the introduction to By Silvia Gherardi, University of Trento and the recent publication in English of a selection of ’ University of Oslo, and Antonio Strati, University Pareyson sessays: of Trento and i3-CRG, Universite´ Paris-Saclay The appearance of a substantial selection of Luigi Pareyson’swritingsinEnglishismotivefor Luigi Pareyson wrote, “The whole of spiri- atransnationalcelebrationinthehistoryofideas. tual life is in some way ‘art’:ineveryfieldof AthinkeroftherankofGadamerandRicoeur,to whom he is often compared, surprisingly little has human industriousness nothing can be done been known or written about him. An original in- without also inventing in some way how it is terpreter of existentialism and German Idealism, to be done” (1988: 63). Therefore, if we want to Pareyson developed an authentic hermeneutic in follow in Pareyson’sstepsandappreciate the nineteen-fifties, a time in which the Italian his contribution to organization and manage- panorama was being shaped by growing Marxist hegemony and the turn towards the sciences es- ment studies, we can see management as pecially linguistics (2010: 99). art, production processes as artistry, a work well done as a work of art, and, of course, art in Pareyson was not attracted by Marxist philos- itself. ophy, since he was a Catholic and a militant in “ ’ ” “ ” The very idea that art is always an art of Partito d Azione and Giustizia e Liberta` dur- something is what motivates us to propose ing the Resistance to Nazi fascism.
    [Show full text]
  • European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, XIII-1 | 2021 Umberto Eco and the Aesthetics of Vagueness 2
    European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy XIII-1 | 2021 Pragmatist Legacies in Aesthetics Umberto Eco and the Aesthetics of Vagueness Rocco Monti Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/2306 DOI: 10.4000/ejpap.2306 ISSN: 2036-4091 Publisher Associazione Pragma Electronic reference Rocco Monti, “Umberto Eco and the Aesthetics of Vagueness”, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy [Online], XIII-1 | 2021, Online since 02 April 2021, connection on 04 April 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/2306 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/ejpap.2306 This text was automatically generated on 4 April 2021. Author retains copyright and grants the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Umberto Eco and the Aesthetics of Vagueness 1 Umberto Eco and the Aesthetics of Vagueness Rocco Monti AUTHOR'S NOTE I want to thank both anonymous referees for their insightful criticism and comments and for suggesting many corrections and additions. I want to thank Rossella Fabbrichesi and Tullio Viola for the help they gave me. I also want to thank Stefano Bacin for his continuous support. The evolution of forms begins or, at any rate, has for an early stage of it, a vague potentiality… It must be by a contraction of the vagueness of that potentiality of everything in general, but of nothing in particular, that the world of forms comes about.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ontology of Evil: Schelling and Pareyson
    The Ontology of Evil: Schelling and Pareyson A thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Daniele Fulvi PhD Candidate in Philosophy Western Sydney University School of Humanities and Communication Arts 2020 Acknowledgements First of all, I acknowledge the Darug, Tharawal, Cabrogal and Wiradjuri peoples as the traditional owners of the land on which this thesis has been written. Sovereignty was never ceded, and this has always been and always will be Aboriginal land. I want to sincerely thank my principal supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Diego Bubbio, for his priceless guidance over the last few years. He had the initial idea for this research project in 2015 and without his encouragement and advice I would have never had the opportunity to continue and complete my education in Australia. I also have to thank my co-supervisor, Prof. Dennis Schmidt, for his very precious support and for his tremendous insights. My sincere thanks also go to Dr. Chris Fleming and Assoc. Prof. Matt McGuire for having been part of my Confirmation of Candidature Committee. I also want to thank Assoc. Prof. Jennifer Mensch, Assoc. Prof. Dimitris Vardoulakis, Dr. Paul Alberts-Dezeew, and in general all the philosophy staff at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts of Western Sydney University, for having always been extremely friendly and available to me all the time. Special thanks also go to Dr. Wayne Peake for his immense patience and inestimable support for all the paperwork and administrative procedures I have had to complete. His help really made my life easier. Moreover, I wish to thank Prof.
    [Show full text]
  • Archivio Luigi Pareyson (1933 – 2006)
    ARCHIVIO LUIGI PAREYSON (1933 – 2006) Inventario Schedatura, riordino e inventariazione a cura di Roberta BUSSA e Corinna DESOLE Torino, dicembre 2014 Riordino realizzato grazie al contributo della SOMMARIO INTRODUZIONE Luigi Pareyson: dalle carte alla genesi del pensiero p. VII Il Centro Studi filosofico-religiosi «Luigi Pareyson» p. XVI Metodologie d’intervento p. XVII Ringraziamenti p. XXVI INVENTARIO Guida alla consultazione p. 3 Struttura del fondo p. 5 Archivio Luigi Pareyson p. 13 Indice dei nomi p. 205 INTRODUZIONE Archivio Luigi Pareyson – Introduzione LUIGI PAREYSON: DALLE CARTE ALLA GENESI DEL PENSIERO Potrebbe sembrare superfluo preporre a questo inventario un’introduzione storica circa il noto filosofo italiano Luigi Pareyson, la cui biografia è già stata dettagliatamente trattata;1 non sarà inutile, però, in seguito al riordino e alla luce delle indicazioni fornite dallo stesso Pareyson, tentare di ricostruire, carte alla mano, il filo dei suoi pensieri nella loro genesi e non solo nella stesura definitiva costituita dalle opere pubblicate, in vita e postume. Un certo spazio merita la sua vicenda di oppositore del regime fascista. L’iscrizione ai Gruppi Universitari Fascisti (1935) non gli impedisce, sicuramente anche grazie alla contemporanea frequentazione delle lezioni di Gioele Solari, di riflettere sui fondamenti del diritto: lo testimoniano alcuni appunti, in forma di saggio, con tanto di note e bibliografia, su il Concetto e ideale del diritto, del giugno1936.2 In un filosofo di esemplare coerenza quale Luigi Pareyson ciò si tradurrà in un impegno concreto nella Resistenza, già dalla cattedra del liceo; come testimonia Semeria, egli avrebbe invitato i propri studenti liceali a “scrivere l’ordinamento della città ideale”,3 per poi concludere che “quello era il programma del Partito d’Azione”.4 1 In F.
    [Show full text]
  • A Bricolage of Critical Hermeneutics, Abductive Reasoning, and Action Research for Advancing Humanistic Values Through Organization Development Practice Daniel J
    University of St. Thomas, Minnesota UST Research Online Education Doctoral Dissertations in Organization School of Education Development 2012 A Bricolage of Critical Hermeneutics, Abductive Reasoning, and Action Research for Advancing Humanistic Values through Organization Development Practice Daniel J. Shuster University of St. Thomas, Minnesota Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.stthomas.edu/caps_ed_orgdev_docdiss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Shuster, Daniel J., "A Bricolage of Critical Hermeneutics, Abductive Reasoning, and Action Research for Advancing Humanistic Values through Organization Development Practice" (2012). Education Doctoral Dissertations in Organization Development. 13. https://ir.stthomas.edu/caps_ed_orgdev_docdiss/13 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Education at UST Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in Education Doctoral Dissertations in Organization Development by an authorized administrator of UST Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Bricolage of Critical Hermeneutics, Abductive Reasoning, and Action Research For Advancing Humanistic Values through Organization Development Practice by Daniel J. Shuster A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the School of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Education degree. University of St. Thomas Saint Paul, Minnesota June 2012 A Bricolage of Critical Hermeneutics, Abductive Reasoning, and Action Research For Advancing Humanistic Values through Organization Development Practice by Daniel J. Shuster University of St. Thomas We certify that we have read this doctoral dissertation written by Daniel J. Shuster and approved it as adequate in scope and quality. We have found it complete and satisfactory in all respects, and that any and all revisions required by the final examining committee have been made.
    [Show full text]
  • The Historical Development of Phronēsis from Homer to Aristotle, and Its Consequences for Hans-Georg Gadamer's Hermeneutic Ethics
    Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2017 Being Wise Before Wisdom: The Historical Development of Phronēsis from Homer to Aristotle, and Its Consequences for Hans-Georg Gadamer's Hermeneutic Ethics Giancarlo Tarantino Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Tarantino, Giancarlo, "Being Wise Before Wisdom: The Historical Development of Phronēsis from Homer to Aristotle, and Its Consequences for Hans-Georg Gadamer's Hermeneutic Ethics" (2017). Dissertations. 2858. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2858 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Copyright © 2017 Giancarlo Tarantino LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO BEING WISE BEFORE WISDOM: THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PHRONĒSIS FROM HOMER TO ARISTOTLE, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR HANS-GEORG GADAMER’S HERMENEUTIC ETHICS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN PHILOSOPHY BY GIANCARLO TARANTINO CHICAGO, IL AUGUST 2017 Copyright by Giancarlo Tarantino, 2017 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In August of 2008, just before starting grad school, I underwent emergency surgery at Loyola Chicago Hospital, which led to a diagnosis that required ongoing treatment. It also began a long fight with an insurance company (United Healthcare), which denied coverage of any of the associated costs. The insurance company won the fight, despite the advocacy work of my doctors, hospital administrators, and, especially, my mother.
    [Show full text]
  • Form, Person, and Inexhaustible Interpretation (On Luigi Pareyson)
    PARRHESIA NUMBER 12 • 2010 • 99-108 REVIEW ARTICLE FORM, PERSON, AND INEXHAUSTIBLE INTERPRETATION: LUIGI PAREYSON, EXISTENCE, INTERPRETATION, FREEDOM. SELECTED WRITINGS. TRANSLATED, AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY PAOLO DIEGO BUBBIO. DAVIES GROUP PUBLISHERS, 2009. Peter Carravetta The appearance of a substantial selection of Luigi Pareyson’s writings in English is motive for a transnational celebration in the history of ideas. A thinker of the rank of Gadamer and Ricoeur, to whom he is often compared, surprisingly little has been known or written about him.1 An original interpreter of existentialism and German Idealism, Pareyson developed an authentic hermeneutic in the nineteen-fifties, a time in which the Italian panorama was being shaped by growing Marxist hegemony and the turn toward the sciences, especially linguistics. Bubbio’s fine Introduction (8-25) breaks down Pareyson’s contribution into three areas, Existence, Knowledge and Interpretation, and the Ontology of Freedom; these obviously overlap and to some degree represent developments of some key ideas first fully theorized in his 1954 masterpiece, Estetica. Teoria della formatività. The great merit of this collection is that it gathers articles and selections from his books which cover the entirety of his career, from a 1940 article on the genesis of existentialism to a draft on suffering and faith found in his notebooks when he passed away in 1991. The volume thus constitutes an ideal introduction, and a starting point from which to begin the revaluation of a major thinker of interpretation, especially in the areas of ontology, art, and ethics. In the following remarks, I will focus mainly on the Pareyson of his mature key writings from the fifties through the seventies.
    [Show full text]
  • Interpretation from the Ground Up
    trópos • anno X • numero 1 • 2017 – ISBN 978-88-255-0482-8 DOI 10.4399/97888255048285 – pag. 69-90 (giugno 2017) Interpretation from the Ground Up Luigi Pareyson’s Hermeneutics of Inexhaustibility and its Implications for Moral Ontology Justin L. Harmon∗ abstract: In this paper, I argue that Luigi Pareyson’s hermeneutics, the mature form of which appears in Verità e interpretazione [1971], is at the same time a radical ontology with consequences for both moral and aesthetic theory. In contrast to the better known approaches of Hans–Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, Pareyson’s account of interpretation strives to respect the interpreted object — whether an everyday thing, a work of art, or a human other — as an inexhaustible plenum whose unitary meaning remains irreducible to any given interpretive framework or historical expression, but which requires a multiplicity of such frameworks and expressions. My argument proceeds via an analysis of the four major features of Pareyson’s thought: (1) aesthetic form as formativity,(2) ontological personalism, (3) the ulteriority of truth, and (4) ethical tragedism. The view that emerges presents the sensible intuition of objects as essentially interpretive on the part of concretely existing persons, who in each case aim to reveal the truth of the object in their interpretive expression. But, owing to the inexhaustibility of being as such, every interpretive expression is doomed to fall short, thus establishing hermeneutic experience as an inescapable and infinite ethical task. keywords: Luigi Pareyson, Hermeneutics, Ethics, Personalism, Ontology. In his 1985 work Poesia e ontologia , Gianni Vattimo asks, “Is a herme- neutics possible.
    [Show full text]
  • Art As Praxis
    META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy – X (2) / 2018 META: RESEARCH IN HERMENEUTICS, PHENOMENOLOGY, AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY VOL. X, NO. 2 / DECEMBER 2018: 410-421, ISSN 2067-3655, www.metajournal.org On Formativity: Art as Praxis Gaetano Chiurazzi Università di Torino Abstract Luigi Pareyson’s concept of formativity is one of his most relevant and original concepts. In this paper I will give a short exposition of this concept in Pareyson’s Estetica and try to show how it can account, better as other object- , subject-, target- oriented theories, even of some features of contemporary art. The very relevant innovation that we can find in this concept is the shift from a concept of art as poiesis—as it is in Aristotle, namely, as a production of an object—to the concept of art as praxis, that is, as an activity which involves the entire doing of the artist. As a doing that invents the form of doing, formativity appears as a kind of schematism that operates, not only without concept, as it is in Kant’s Critique of Judgement, but even without object. The thesis here suggested is that formativity can be understood as a transcendentalism of invention.’ Keywords: Pareyson, aesthetics; formativity, work of art, invention, poiesis, praxis I The goal of this article is to discuss the concept of ‘formativity’ formulated by the Italian philosopher Luigi Pareyson, the teacher of more well-known philosophers as Gianni Vattimo and Umberto Eco at the University of Turin.1 This concept is presented by Pareyson in his book Estetica, published in its first edition in 1954, with the subtitle Teoria della formatività (Theory of formativity).
    [Show full text]